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Director Stephen Lott poses with his penguin prop friends that were made for the upcoming production of "Mary Poppins" at the Pensacola Little Theatre in Pensacola on Friday, July 6, 2018. Gregg Pachkowski/gregg@pnj.com

Director Stephen Lott shows the "Spoolful of Sugar" prop for the upcoming production of "Mary Poppins" at the Pensacola Little Theatre in Pensacola on Friday, July 6, 2018. Gregg Pachkowski/gregg@pnj.com

Director Stephen Lott adds a trick stack of plates to a collection of props for the upcoming production of "Mary Poppins" at the Pensacola Little Theatre in Pensacola on Friday, July 6, 2018. Gregg Pachkowski/gregg@pnj.com

Director Stephen Lott talks about the props that he has made for the upcoming production of "Mary Poppins" at the Pensacola Little Theatre in Pensacola on Friday, July 6, 2018. Gregg Pachkowski/gregg@pnj.com

Director Stephen Lott talks about the cotton candy prop that he has made for the upcoming production of "Mary Poppins" at the Pensacola Little Theatre in Pensacola on Friday, July 6, 2018. Gregg Pachkowski/gregg@pnj.com

Director Stephen Lott show prop letters for the upcoming production of "Mary Poppins" at the Pensacola Little Theatre in Pensacola on Friday, July 6, 2018. Lott pays close attention to minute details, like the Banks' address on letters postmarked 1910, on props even though the audience will never see them. Gregg Pachkowski/gregg@pnj.com

Director Stephen Lott demonstrates a break-away vase prop for the upcoming production of "Mary Poppins" at the Pensacola Little Theatre in Pensacola on Friday, July 6, 2018. Gregg Pachkowski/gregg@pnj.com

Director Stephen Lott explains how he made a cuckoo clock prop for the upcoming production of "Mary Poppins" at the Pensacola Little Theatre in Pensacola on Friday, July 6, 2018. Gregg Pachkowski/gregg@pnj.com

Director Stephen Lott poses with his penguin prop friends that were made for the upcoming production of "Mary Poppins" at the Pensacola Little Theatre in Pensacola on Friday, July 6, 2018.(Photo: Gregg Pachkowski/gregg@pnj.com)Buy Photo

Any fan of the classic Disney film “Mary Poppins” knows that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

But Stephen Lott is not just any fan, as he proves by producing a vintage, corked bottle with a label featuring a silhouette of the magical nanny herself and the words, “Mary Poppins Magical Elixir: Spoonful of Sugar.”

The “vintage” bottle, however, is hardly that. “It’s an empty bottle of my wife’s hair conditioner,” Lott says. And the label? Designed by Lott and printed at home.

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Prop for the upcoming production of "Mary Poppins" at the Pensacola Little Theatre in Pensacola on Friday, July 6, 2018.(Photo: Gregg Pachkowski/gregg@pnj.com)

“Now, the audience is probably not going to see that kind of detail,” Lott says, indicating the label. “But they’ll notice that it’s not just an ordinary prop. And that brings them more into the show.”

The show is the upcoming Pensacola Little Theatre production of the Broadway musical version of “Mary Poppins,” based on both the original P.L. Travers novels and the Disney film. The “Spoonful of Sugar” elixir bottle is but one of many handcrafted props from the show created by Lott, 57, who is the play’s director.

A Pensacola child psychologist, Lott is active in the local community theater scene and is chair of PLT’s Treehouse Theatre for young audiences. A specialist in fantasy and the spectacular, he previously directed Treehouse productions of "Alice in Wonderland," "Alice Through the Looking Glass," "The Wizard of Oz" and "Shrek the Musical.” He’s been formulating his “Mary Poppins” version for years.

Win a chance to fly!

Pensacola Little Theatre is giving one lucky winner the chance to fly across its historic stage. Chances are available for purchase to soar alongside Mary Poppins on the afternoon of Saturday, July 21. Tickets for this unique opportunity are being sold through Sunday, July 15, at pensacolalittletheatre.com or the PLT box office for $25 each. The winner will be announced Monday, July 16.

"The ideas started percolating five years ago,” Lott says. "Two years ago, when I was in production for ‘Shrek,' I got hold of a black market copy of the Broadway script. It hadn’t yet been released to the general public. I was already formulating ideas and concepts and trying to figure out how to make what they did in this very massive show on Broadway, which was the biggest set in the history of Broadway at the time, relevant and magical on our stage. I started making the props about a year ago.”

While Lott has a props crew — Lisa Bond, Holly Bussey and Burke Burkhardt — scouring the area and the internet for period items, he realized that certain props required his particular set of skills. In addition to being a longtime theater veteran, he’s also an artist, illusionist, craftsman and designer.

For example, he holds up a beautiful bell jar featuring a display of butterflies. The jar is tall and clear, with a spherical, jewel-like handle, and rests upon what appears to be a rich, mahogany base.

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Prop for the upcoming production of "Mary Poppins" at the Pensacola Little Theatre in Pensacola on Friday, July 6, 2018.(Photo: Gregg Pachkowski/gregg@pnj.com)

"A lot of the stuff you can’t buy,” he says. “Also, there are the pieces that you can’t find somewhere else, or there’s a reason they needed to be different. Like the bell jars. They’re made to fly across the stage, but I don’t want a bunch of glass flying over your head. So, for much less money, the equivalent of $4, I made the bell jars. It’s a Dollar Tree two-liter soda bottle, with a Christmas ornament bobble on top, a wooden base from Michael’s, sticks from my yard and fake butterflies, also from Michael’s. It’s lightweight, it’s not going to break, but visually it’s going to add some color and interest.”

He lifts a framed picture of colorful flowers. “At one point the character Bert wants to give Mary Poppins some flowers. So he reaches into the picture and …” Lott slips a couple of fingers into a hidden slot at the base of the frame and pulls out a bouquet that pops into three dimensions. The frame, handmade by Lott from foam board, Velcro and Plexiglas, is but one of the many illusions Lott has designed and created for the show.

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Prop for the upcoming production of "Mary Poppins" at the Pensacola Little Theatre in Pensacola on Friday, July 6, 2018.(Photo: Gregg Pachkowski/gregg@pnj.com)

A bright tray of pink and blue cotton candy cones is Lott’s next example. “I used Dollar Tree oil funnels for the bases, cotton batting for the candy itself, covered with fluorescent spray paint to give it that candied look, all in an upside-down tray that I got from Michael’s for a couple of bucks.”

What appears to be fine china is actually a stack of plastic, dollar-store plates adorned with stickers, decoupage and paint. “Sure, I could have gone on eBay and found some china, but china’s always asking for trouble on stage,” Lott says. “So I created the illusion.”

Another illusion is the precarious stack of plates and bowls that teeters and wobbles as Lott holds it up.

“In the show there is a houseboy who is notoriously clumsy. I wanted to have a bit where he’s juggling the plates, with the whole audience nervous as he’s walking across the stage. Of course, as soon as he gets offstage it comes crashing to the ground.” The plates, really made of plastic, are made to look wobbly and unbalanced with the use of spacers and an elastic cord through the center. "Things that seem simple are often very difficult; the things that look complicated are very simple."

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Prop for the upcoming production of "Mary Poppins" at the Pensacola Little Theatre in Pensacola on Friday, July 6, 2018.(Photo: Gregg Pachkowski/gregg@pnj.com)

Some of the more fascinating “Poppins” props, however, are the items with details few, if any, audience members would even notice. Take, for instance, the Teddy bear from the children’s room. There’s something about it that doesn’t look like your average bear. “This was just a Teddy bear from JoAnn’s,” Lott says. “All I did was shave around his nose, because that’s how Teddy bears looked around the turn of the century. Is anyone going to notice that? No, but there’s a part of it that makes it a little more real.”

He points to a stack of framed drawings of familiar characters. "I wanted illustrations for the children’s room. These actually are illustrations from the original books and I hand-water-colored them. Your audience isn’t going to see what the pictures are, but it’s a nod to the book, so that’s fun."

Lott fans out a stack of sealed and stamped envelopes, each one addressed to the Banks, the family visited by Mary Poppins. They look perfectly normal. On closer inspection, however, one realizes that the envelopes are different sizes and paper stock. No two addresses are in the same handwriting. The postmarks are from 1910.

"No one is going to notice that. No one will see that King Edward is on the stamp, but it made me happy."

And that, it turns out, is one of the reasons Lott pours so much time, love and artistry into his props.

"There are three reasons I do this stuff. One is for the audience, two is for the cast and the third is for me. I love the challenge. Whenever I do my shows, I want to find something that is impossible and figure out how to do it. And that’s what I love."

He picks up what appears to be a priceless Ming vase and drops it to the stage floor, where it shatters into dozens of pieces. Calmly he reassembles the vase, which is actually only three main pieces with a bunch of smaller fragments inside to give the illusion of many shards.

"The play is never about the props,” he says. "These are just to augment the actors. If your actors are not telling the story right, it doesn’t matter what your sets, your costumes, your props look like. But if you have a great cast, and I happen to have a phenomenal cast, all the other details help pull you into the moment and they make it that much more real.”

Mike Suchcicki is a freelance writer for the News Journal.

Want to go?

Tickets: $17, $27 and $33, available at pensacolalittletheatre.com or the box office. Theatre Thursday tickets are half-price, as are Saturday, Aug. 11, Treehouse matinee tickets for children 12 and younger.